Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash speed record

Updated 8:12 PM ET, Tue May 14, 2013

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Photos:Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash record

World's fastest sailing vessel – Skimming across the water at 95 kilometers per hour, with its giant wings stretched out over the waves, it would be easy to mistake this sleek machine for a plane preparing to take off.

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Photos:Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash record

World's fastest sailing vessel – In fact, the record-breaking vessel -- called Hydroptere -- is one of the fastest sailboats in the world, harnessing wind power much the same as an airplane.

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Photos:Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash record

World's fastest sailing vessel – The brainchild of French sailor Alain Thebault (pictured), the state-of-the-art yacht features a 28-meter mast -- roughly the same height as the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

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Photos:Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash record

World's fastest sailing vessel – Named after the Greek words for water (hydros) and wing (ptere), the innovative vessel broke the World Sailing Speed Record in 2009, notching up 95 kilometers per hour over 500 meters. That record was broken by Australian Paul Larsen's Vestas Sailrocket last year, which hit 121 kilometers per hour. But the battle for the fastest sailboat isn't over yet...

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Photos:Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash record

World's fastest sailing vessel – Later this month the Hydroptere team hope to break the record for the fastest crossing of the Pacific, between Los Angeles and Honolulu. Compatriot Olivier de Kersauson currently holds the record for the fastest crossing of four days and 19 hours, set in 2005. Thebault aims to beat that time by at least 24 hours.

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Photos:Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash record

World's fastest sailing vessel – Hydroptere features six-meter wings called "floats." Once in full flight, just 2.5 square meters of the boat are in contact with the water. "We use hydrofoil wings, which lift up with the wind," Thebault told CNN. "It's exactly the same as an airplane -- we reduce drag and increase acceleration."

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Photos:Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash record

World's fastest sailing vessel – Submerged beneath the wings are foils which lift the boat out of the water, giving it its speed. The streamlined seven and a half ton boat can shoot from 37 kilometers per hour to 83 kilometers per hour in just 10 seconds.

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Photos:Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash record

World's fastest sailing vessel – While the Hydroptere easily zips across flat water, one of the biggest challenges for the crew in the upcoming transpacific challenge will be negotiating waves around four-meters high. "Twenty years ago everyone said it's not possible to make a boat fly. I did it. Now they're saying it's not possible to make it fly over swell. I will do it again," Thebault said.

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Photos:Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash record

World's fastest sailing vessel – The ambitious project has been more than 25 years in the making, with 50-year-old Thebault saying it cost "20 years of passion and a few million euros." The father-of-three recently sold his home to help finance the scheme.

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Photos:Futuristic 'flying' boat aims to smash record

World's fastest sailing vessel – The Hydroptere is no stranger to record-breaking performances. In 2005 it crossed the Channel three minutes faster than Louis Blériot did in the first plane in 1909, with a time of 34 minutes. In September last year, it also broke the one mile speed record on San Francisco Bay, notching up 69 kilometers per hour.

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World's fastest sailing vessel – As a youngster growing up in a children's home in France, Thebault dreamed of making a sail boat lift off. "I felt like I was living in a jail and I wanted to fly," he said, pictured here with a model boat outside the Palace of Versailles in 1985.

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World's fastest sailing vessel – "I grew up in a home for children with no parents -- my father was living in Africa and my mother was in a psychiatric house," said Thebault. "I discovered freedom through windsurfing."